Salt and Iron
by ncfan
Summary: Elenwë sat in the cold, trying to warm her hands by a meager fire.


I own nothing.

* * *

_What have I gotten myself into?_

Elenwë loved the winters of Aman. She loved the winters of her youth in Taniquetil when the soft snows would blanket the world she knew in white. For whatever reason, the Minyar seemed to have greater tolerance to the elements, to extremes in hot and cold, and it was Elenwë's greatest joy on winter mornings to run barefoot through the snow.

There was only rarely snow in Tirion. It didn't come every year or even every decade, and Elenwë could not remember a time, in all the time she had lived in Tirion, that what snow there was lasted more than a day and was more than an inch thick.

The Noldor were, in Elenwë's eyes, ridiculously intolerant of what cold they did experience. The winters in Tirion were incredibly mild, and still they behaved as though the winter was brutal. It always amused Elenwë to see Turukáno wrapped in his warmest cloak when she herself barely felt cold enough to desire anything beyond her dress to wear. Itarillë had inherited her mother's Minyarin tolerance for cold weather, and often left her father flummoxed when she blithely refused his offer of a coat or cloak, saying that she was not cold. Elenwë would have loved to bring her child home for the winter so she could run barefoot through the snow.

There was opportunity enough for that, now. Oh yes, there was opportunity abounding for Elenwë to experience deeper winter once again, and for Itarillë to know the snow for what it could be. But would either of them, or any of the rest, would they ever know warmth again, now that they had entered the realm of the Grinding Ice?

Nolofinwë gave the call to butcher the last of their pack animals just recently. They were starving as much as the Quendi, but if the Hosts had waited much longer to butcher them, scrawny, bedraggled creatures that they were, there wouldn't have been any meat left on them to eat. Elenwë tried not to remember the thin, piteous sound of Itarillë crying as the mules were slaughtered.

But suddenly, as she struggled to warm her hands by a meager fire, it was all Elenwë could hear.

The tent blocked out the wind, but that was all it did. Even with a fire burning, it was still bitterly cold, so cold that it had reached down into every last inch of her, fingers to toes, head to feet. It wasn't a simple surface cold; it was in her blood, her muscles, her bones. Elenwë had once watched a tree slowly die after being infected with a parasitic vine, and this was what it felt like. The life was being slowly strangled out of her. Any last ounce of warmth she had left was already gone. The fire could not warm her at all. She who had once loved winter longed for spring again.

_Why did I choose to come here? Why did I not turn back, and take my daughter home with me? Even in such a dark, blighted world, it would have been better if we had stayed in Aman. I can see that now._

_But it's too late to go back._

"Elenwë?"

The tent flap opened and a sharp gust of wind, brutal like knives playing across her skin, shattered against Elenwë's back. She turned about to watch her sister-in-law as Irissë quickly secured the tent flap so it wouldn't blow open unnecessarily. Irissë nodded towards her, and Elenwë forced a smile in response. "Have you seen Itarillë, Irissë?"

"Yes, I have." Irissë huddled by the fire next to her, so close that their shoulders were touching. Elenwë wanted to protest, wanted to tell Irissë that she shouldn't sit so close, that the chill in her bones might be catching and Irissë didn't need to be dealing with that on top of everything else, but no words would come to her mouth. "Do you want me to go get her for you?"

Irissë looked at her with pale eyes, strands of her bushy hair falling over her face. She pulled her cloak close about her shoulders and she had that look, a look Elenwë had learned to recognize well since the Noldor began their crossing of the Ice. The look of someone who was dreading going back outside, but would if there's a sufficient reason. "How did she look?" Elenwë asks quietly. "Was she with someone?"

"She's with our kin. And as for how she looked…" Irissë hesitated, staring at the opposite side of the tent. She mouthed a few words, as though testing how they sound in her head. "She looked as she has, Elenwë."

Elenwë stared into the depths of the fire. 'As she has'… Would that she could change that to 'as she was.' Would that she could gift Itarillë with the bliss of her childhood, the safety, and, yes, the warmth. Would that she could turn back now, take her child with her, and go home to a place where there was food and shelter and the promise that they wouldn't fall through the surface of the ground into the bitter ocean. "No," Elenwë whispered, clapping her hand against her knee. "I'll bring her in after a bit. And how goes the search for drinkable water?"

That was another problem of life upon the Grinding Ice. There was plenty of snow and ice, oh yes. There was plenty of that which, you would think, could easily be melted down into drinking water, so that even if the Quendi were starving, they wouldn't lack for water to quench their thirst. Even that was denied them, though. The snow around the campsite was, it was presumed, formed from freshwater, but it was undrinkable after having been trampled so completely. The ice was formed from saltwater, and thus even when melted was undrinkable.

"Well, and I can't say I'm sure why you are making it out to be a great 'search', sister. All that must be done is to send Quendi out away from the camp, where we haven't been walking, with a bucket and a large spoon. Your daughter has already done this herself."

Elenwë had nothing to say to this, and did not wish to admit that she already knew that, and the knowledge had slipped her mind. Irissë was horribly uncomfortable in the role of comfort-giver, and even less proficient in the arena of checking that those around her were still in full possession of their mental faculties. She could do it, but not gladly at all. Better to leave the huntress to do what she did best.

"Elenwë…" There was a hand on her shoulder, and Irissë's voice was much gentler than it usually was since the Hosts had begun their journey across the Ice. Elenwë didn't meet her gaze. "Are you alright?"

All of a sudden, Elenwë wanted to weep. She wasn't sure why she did, wasn't sure why she wanted to taste salt on her lips, in her mouth, and was even less sure why, when she tried to weep, nothing would come. "I… I am well, sister." Elenwë pressed a hand to her forehead, found a vein throbbing and tried to smooth it out. "What was it like for you at Alqualondë?" she asked suddenly, the words out of her mouth before she even had time to think about them. "When you and the others killed the Swan-Elves?"

"Elenwë, I…" Irissë stared at her, appalled and shrinking back from her sister-in-law, eyes open wide and shadowed with memory.

Forcing another smile onto her face, this one apologetic, Elenwë shrugged her shoulders. "I did not mean to upset you, Irissë. But really, I am curious."

Irissë still stared at her, wide-eyed, shaken and recoiling. Elenwë didn't think that she had ever seen Irissë look like that, and of all of the things to trigger such a response, she had never thought it would be something said by her.

Elenwë looked past her, at the sword hilt poking out from the pile of belongings she knew to be her sister-in-law's. "Please, Irissë," she said softly.

After a pregnant pause, Irissë nodded, and swallowed. "If you really wish to know." She drew a deep, moist, shuddering breath. Her face, already beginning to grow drawn and haggard, seemed only more worn. "The blood… The blood was warm. The blood was warm; it got everywhere. I don't know if you have ever been hunting, but it's like that." She bowed her head, clutching the edge of her cloak in her hand. "I didn't expect the blood of Quendi to look so much like the blood of beasts.

"I… The way they looked… Their eyes…" Irissë shook her head sharply, seeming to come back to herself. "No, that's enough." She looked at Elenwë very hard, frowning. "I'll not say any more about it, Elenwë."

"So why did you leave with the rest of the Host, then?"

The look on Irissë's face was one close to exasperation, still shadowed by the memory of Alqualondë. "Elenwë, I _couldn't_—" her voice cracked. She drew another deep breath. "I couldn't go back," she said in a brittle voice. "Not after that." Irissë struggled to draw a smile to her face, but there was no heart in it. "The only way left to go is forwards, it seems."

But not without regrets, Elenwë could see. Suddenly, she felt a sharp stab of pity for her sister-in-law. Irissë had followed her father and her brothers, as any dutiful daughter and sister would have done. She had followed her own desires, the desire to lay eyes on strange lands, the desire to travel, the desire to be free, and never had she suspected that it would lead her to murder of her fellow Quendi. Never had she suspected that it would lead her to travail upon the Ice.

She leaned over, and tiredly kissed her sister-in-law on the cheek. Irissë shot her a startled look, but said nothing.

Irissë could not have turned back, but Elenwë could have. All the same, she was here of her own will, and that she knew exactly why did not alleviate the pain of it at all. Not an ounce. The promise of new lands was no balm compared to the pain of lands that she would never see again. The promise of Quendi on the other side of the sea was nothing to the Quendi she left behind in Aman.

Elenwë sat by the fire, trying to warm her hands. She knew that she would find no warmth there, or anywhere. She doubted that she would ever find it again.

* * *

Turukáno—Turgon  
Itarillë—Idril  
Nolofinwë—Fingolfin  
Irissë—Aredhel

Minyar—the first clan of the Elves, later becoming known as the Vanyar; many of them still refer to themselves as 'Minyar'  
Quendi—Elves (singular: Quendë) (Quenya)


End file.
